GOOGLE CONTINUES TO AMAZE WITH USEFUL FEATURES
The big Google buzz this past week was the search engine's April Fool's Day announcement regarding its upcoming free Gmail service that will offer a full gigabyte of storage. It was no April Fools' hoax. Compared to current offerings, the gigabyte storage capacity far exceeds the paltry 3 to 6 megabytes of storage being offered by competing email services Yahoo and Hotmail.
What's even more useful is how Google intends to incorporate its search engine ability into its Gmail service. According to Google, you will be able to search through every piece of email you have stored there so that you can quickly and easily locate messages that contain the exact information you want to use. But although it's Gmail that's been the focus of attention, I didn't want two other brand new features from Google to slip past your attention.
The first new feature from Google is something called "Search By Number." Currently, I have my browser bookmarked to locations that track packages I ship via FedEx, the U.S. Post Office and UPS. I can now throw those bookmarks away along with many others because of this new Google search ability. Basically, Search By Number allows me to enter a myriad of different numbers directly into the Google search box located on its home page. If I were for example, to enter in "1Z9999W999999999" and do a Google Search, at the top of the page listing all the normal search matching attempts would be a red-lettered question asking "Did you mean: 1Z 9999 W 9999999999" followed on the next line by a graphic image of a brown package. Displayed next to it will be a "Track UPS package 1Z 9999 W 9999999999" link that goes directly to the UPS web site page that displays the tracking information of my package! In fact if you enter one of several different kinds of formatted numbers, Google is smart enough to first identify the kind of number that it is. It then confirms that it is that kind of number by displaying its category, and finally provides you with a link to the page that will immediately identify and display the number's corresponding information.
According to Google, this works not only with specialized numbers coming from sources like the aforementioned shipping services, but also with things like Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers. It also works with Universal Product Codes. Those are the numbers you'll find just beneath the scanning lines found on just about every product you can buy these days. Pick one up, type in the number and watch Google transfer you to the corresponding UPC page that displays the very product you are holding in your hand. It's almost spooky when that happens.
Search By Number also works with telephone area codes and phone numbers. I put mine in and saw my name and address appear on the screen. There goes my White and Yellow Pages bookmarks (I just might toss the books too). It works with Patent numbers, FAA airplane registration numbers (those are the numbers you usually see displayed on an airplane's tail), and FCC equipment Identification numbers as well. It's an amazing and at the same time useful service. Check it out.
The other new Google features I'd like to mention are Numrange and Web Alerts. With Numrange, you can specify results containing numbers in a range you set.
You can conduct a Numrange search by specifying two numbers, separated by two periods, with no spaces. Be sure to specify a unit of measure or some other indicator of what the number range represents. For example, you could conduct a search for a DVD player in the $250 to $300 price range by typing "DVD player $250..300" or search for a digital camera in the 3 to 5 megapixel range by typing "3..5 megapixel digital camera". Numrange can be used to set a range for everything from dates (Willie Mays 1950..1960) to weights (5000..10000 kg truck).
Google Web Alerts are emails automatically sent to you by Google when there's new information on the web about a topic of interest to you. Google looks at the top 10 news results (news.google.com) as well as the top 20 web results. If Google finds a new result that you haven't seen, they send it to you. Give it a try at www.google.com/webalerts.
Bottom line is that Google continues to serve in ways far and above what we've come to expect from any ordinary search engine. And although I mentioned earlier that I've since removed many of my bookmarks, there will be one bookmark I'll be keeping near the top of my list: Google.com. |
